I

THE INEVITABLE PROBLEM.

SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD, SUPERVISOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS, BOSTON, MASS.

NSTITUTION life of any sort has its own peculiar tenden

cies, advantages and dangers. The institution is the outgrowth of human experience, and records the organized effort of mankind to meet certain conditions and supply certain needs. The need is the first factor, for the institution springs up in response to its demands, and shapes itself in supplying these demands. Plans which at first are experimental crystallize into fixed habits and customs, and debatable theories become established principles of action.

A critical study of the history of any institution will illustrate this line of development. The hospital is established because the sick must be provided for, and human sympathy yearns to provide for the suffering and the needy. In order to deal. with the numbers which are admitted, and, indeed, in order to protect them, certain rules and customs are ordained; but it often happens that the minor rules and traditions of the institution come to outweigh the need of the patient for whose good the institution was created. The history of the treatment of the poor and of the insane has often revealed the same tendency. The directors' of an institution naturally tend to magnify and exalt the ways and means by which the good of the institution. has, in many cases, been secured; and in the course of time it becomes exceedingly difficult to adapt these ways and means to new conditions, or to the individual need of the inmates for whose good the institution was at first established.

The school, as an institution, displays the same tendencies and is subject to the same dangers. Its purpose was to secure the good of the children, and the sincerest aim of all friends of the school is to aid the children in all possible ways through this public institution. But the fact that the institution deals with great numbers of children has necessitated the reduction of experience to custom; while custom, in turn, has developed fixed and dominant rules. Tradition acquires a halo through long association, and, consequently, ways and means which in many cases were avowedly experimental at the start have become fixed. into invariable rules.

Thus the young girl who grows up in a town or city, attending the public school, unconsciously becomes familiar with the school traditions, accepting them naturally as she accepts the peculiar customs of her neighborhood or the individual peculiarities of her home. School to her stands for these customs and traditions, plus the knowledge which she gains by means of the general equipment of the institution. She graduates from the high school, from the normal school, perhaps from college, and returns as a teacher, it may be to the very district in which she grew up, and takes her place at the desk in the very room in which she was taught as a child.

How natural under these circumstances for the teacher to accept without question the garment woven of past tradition— to accept it as she does the weather, the sunrise, the sunset, the change of seasons. She would indeed show a marked strength of mind and an unusual quality of character if she questioned the wisdom of these customs, which seem to her inherent in the institution itself and inseparable from the conduct of its affairs. Her pupils stand and come and go just as she did as a child. The accustomed restrictions of discipline and organization are as natural as breathing. What wonder that the accomplishment of the lesson for the day, the perpetuation of the programme, the mastery of the school routine, the attainment of the traditional order, become to her far more vital than John's growth in grace or Susan's development of the power of self-control! And yet the discipline, the routine, the order of exercises exist for the sake of this very John and Susan, and the teacher's inevitable problem is to secure through the school organization the good of these children. Failing in this, the school just so far fails to secure the end for which it was established. Achieving this result the school is good, even if it departs from the accepted standard of school-keeping.

Again the teacher is confronted by an added problem. Returning to her early associations and accepting a more or less artificial environment, she assumes of necessity the work of directing immature minds. She knows more about most things than do her pupils. They are accustomed to believe that her word establishes law. If she says that a thing is so, they take it for granted that the fact is established. It is not strange

that the teacher tends to become tinctured by this all-pervading belief, and to share the opinion of her pupils. She speaks with an air of authority whether in school or out of school. Can we wonder if she forgets her limitations and over-emphasizes her accomplishments, becomes fixed in her own fashion of thought and action, and ceases to be hospitable to innovations which might otherwise modify her habit, or at least suggest the possibility of a better way than that which she has found? Yet this way danger lies, for growth ceases and work becomes petty and tyrannical when this stage is reached.

Thus, however earnest, however able, however progressive a teacher may be, she must contend with the strong tendencies of the institution and of her profession. In order to prevent herself from becoming simply a part of a machine-performing her allotted service without question-or from assuming the attitude of a dictator, owing to her environment, she must consciously study the situation from the outside. She must learn to regard the institution as a servant and not a master, as one of the phases of social life rather than an end in itself, and to turn upon her every-day routine the keen scrutiny of a mind accustomed to observe the world of actual life as well as the world of the school.

There is no escape from the actual danger of the institution as such, except through a conscious apprehension of the original purpose of the organization and a constant study of the outside world. The teacher, whether a principal or a subordinate, must constantly ask herself: "What is this institution accomplishing? What ends ought it to secure? Why am I following this certain routine? Is it the best which I could devise? Is it as well suited to the needs of the children to-day as it was ten, twentyfive, fifty years ago? Are the needs of the children just what they were at that time? Has the school a new task to perform? Is every child receiving at the hands of the school the utmost which the institution could bestow upon him? Do the parents understand the present school conditions? Would they be satisfied with the present accomplishment if they understood what might be done for their children? Ought conditions to be different, and can I help to make them different?"

In order to answer these questions the teacher must leave the

precincts of the school and know something of life in other circles, the home, the children in the home; the store, in which children labor and which makes its absolute demands upon them; the counting house; the street; the wharves; the railroad. Business organizations must be known to her, and the demands of the times upon the children who come under her care. What knowledge do they bring to school? What will they need to know for future guidance? What power must they develop? What will be their duty, their responsibility, their influence as members of the community in the days to come? Should the fathers and mothers of to-day be satisfied with what the school is doing to prepare the fathers and mothers of the future? Ought the citizens of to-day to be contented with the preparation for citizenship which our boys and girls are receiving? Have the banker, the "baker and the candlestick maker," the maker of machines and the maker of roads, the maker of books and the maker of laws, any word to contribute as to the efficiency of our schools? Can the teacher do her part well if she fails to look upon the institution from the outside as well as from the inside, and to judge it according as it fulfills or fails to fulfill the demands of the times?

As a body, we ought to receive with enthusiasm and appreciation the comments and suggestions of "the laity" as to school matters. It is well for those who are concerned with the routine and the details of the institution to know how the product of their work is received by the general public. The only aim of the school should be to prepare its pupils for a useful, an intelligent and a happy life. To this end school-keepers and school-teachers must know what is required by their times.

There is no remedy for the second problem of the teacher, except the recognition of the work of teaching as serious, sacred and responsible,—a matter too great to be mastered by any one person. As soon as our work ceases to be counted as teaching algebra, arithmetic or geometry, and is recognized as teaching children, we shall begin to appreciate the gravity of our task and our need of help. To aid in the growth of a human soul is a mighty task, before which any teacher may be reverent, and to which she may well give the most careful and serious preparation. Recognizing the importance of her work,

she ceases to consider herself as a complete master of the art. Knowing that she needs to learn, she develops the grace of humility, seeks to share what others have learned, and thus counteracts the tendency of the school-keeper to become a dictator and a tyrant.

For her own salvation the teacher must always be a student and disciple; must sit at the feet of those who have been taught in academic halls or in the schools of experience; must be ready to learn all that can be taught by those who have studied in any of its phases the complex problem of our marvellous life.

Such a consideration of our institution and its problems ought to lead us to a definite course of action. First, we should be ready to accept suggestions and criticisms from those who see our work from the outside in its relation to what is called practical life. The fact that a thing has been good does not prove that it will always meet the needs of the community, and we should bend a listening ear to the comments, the petitions and the criticism of those who have a different point of view. Second, we should recognize that the changes in social life demand a corresponding change in our institution, and should be willing to appreciate this need at the same time that we hold fast to the things which we have considered good. Third, remembering that the school was created for the child, we should strive in every possible way to prevent our traditions of organization and classification from hindering the growth or advancement or inspiration of the individual. Whenever we find a single pupil who receives less at the hands of the institution than he would have received as an individual, we ought to begin to question whether we can find a better way.

And lastly, as teachers, for our own sake, to guard against the enslavement of our office, we should sit at the feet of those who know some things better than we know them, constantly discovering to ourselves our weakness and our limitations. Then we shall have sympathy with the pupils who in our little department know less than we do, but who in the years to come may be able to lead us in paths we have not known. Something we must study-something we must learn-in order to preserve the attitude, not of humbleness, but of real humility, which is inseparable from true wisdom.